Parlor Games

May 27, 2013
The year is 1917 and our hero (or antihero perhaps), May Dugas, explains how she came to be on trial for extortion in Menominee, Mich. Before her capture, life in Chicago was a wild ride: May wormed her way into the upper echelon of society, conning men out of their money with her good looks and killer instinct. Narrator Leslie Carroll gives a stellar reading, deftly assuming the role of May. Carroll’s narration is flawless, and her character interpretations are endlessly original yet subtle. Rather than deliver an over-the-top performance, Carol offers up a restrained yet entirely appropriate reading that will entertain listeners to the very end. A Doubleday hardcover.

October 15, 2012
The author traces the life of May Dugas, who schemes, thieves, claws, charms, swindles and whores her way to economic success. One of the tragedies of May's life is that she grew up in Menominee, Wis., and aspired to so much more. The dull Midwest couldn't contain her vaulting ambition and grand sense of self-destiny. The novel alternates between her trial for fraud in 1917 and flashbacks into her life as con artist, "lady of leisure" and manipulator extraordinaire. The lawsuit has been brought against her by Frank Shaver, a woman who had been May's close friend as well as her lover. Even more interesting than the trial is the pattern of behavior that led May to jack up her social status--so at one level, the narrative line fulfills the American myth of the self-made woman, whose pluck and courage lead her to economic and social success. Her pursuit of wealth--and occasional need to escape the law, especially in the form of the relentless Reed Dougherty, a Pinkerton detective who tracks her for years--leads her to Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, Shanghai, London, Amsterdam and other places, both exotic and non-. She eventually marries Rudolph de Vries, a Dutch baron, and this allows her the liberty to style herself a baroness. Along the way, she accrues lovers of both sexes, makes extravagant purchases of jewelry and engages in sordid business schemes promising huge rates of return through questionable means. When the judge rules that May owes Frank over $57,000, she makes one last attempt to escape her past as well as to shake off Dougherty's dogged pursuit. Based on a true story, Biaggio's narrative provides an engaging glimpse into a character who categorically eludes our attempts to define her.

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August 1, 2012

The Pinkerton Agency once called May Dugas "the most dangerous womanalive," but psychology professor-turned-novelist Biaggio gives us May's perspective. Seeking employment in 1887 Chicago at age 18, May uses her charms to wrestle money from men--and get herself engaged to a high-society type. Then Pinkerton detective Reed Doherty intervenes.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2012
This double-stranded narrative bounces back and forth between the extortion trial of turn-of-the-century con artist May Dugas and the international escapades that led to her arrest. Basing her novel loosely on a real-life figure, the woman the venerable Pinkerton Agency once dubbed the Most Dangerous Woman, Biaggio re-creates the deliciously fabulous foibles and follies of a woman born into hardscrabble circumstances but determined to make her way in the world with wit, beauty, and a brazen ability to exploit her feminine charms for a very high price. Whether one admires or reviles May, there's no doubt that she makes the most of every entertaining opportunityand, hey, a girl's gotta make a living, especially with a particularly persistent Pinkerton detective hot on her heels. Sheer, frenetic fun.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)